“Don’t. Please.”
“But I knew,” I continue. “I just couldn’t see that Cal would never like me back. God, I’m so stupid.”
She shakes her head so hard that her curls are bouncing. “No,” she says, keeping her voice firm. “He used you. He confused you. I’ve seen him with you—he’s flirty as hell! He knew what he was doing! Seriously—fuck him.”
I rub at my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Okay,” Amelia says. “Yeah. Of course.”
We’re quiet for a minute, then I ask, “How’d you know to come over?”
Amelia bites her lip. “Don’t be mad.”
“Tell me.”
“Your mom told me to come.”
I guess I’m more surprised by that than angry. “She did?”
“Yeah. I mean. Last night, when I was texting and I didn’t hear back, I started to worry. I thought if it was going well, you’d be texting me. When I didn’t hear from you, I started thinking something might be wrong. But I also didn’t want to bother you just in case I was totally off base and things were actually going really well. But then this morning, I still hadn’t heard from you. So I stooped real low: I called your landline. Your mom answered and when I asked if you were there, she said yeah but that something was up.”
“How did she phrase it?” I don’t know why this is the first thing I want to know, but it is.
“Well…she gently—very gently—said she thought you might’ve been stood up.” Amelia’s biting her lip again.
“Not quite, but close,” I say. “My crush didn’t stand me up—he just didn’t want me there at all. Great guess, though, Mom. Real nice.” It kills me that my mom was right all along.
“That’s not how she meant it. She was just concerned. Like me. She didn’t mean anything by it,” Amelia says quickly. “She just wanted me to come over. She thought I’d have better luck talking to you.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but I’m glad she did. I want to be here for you.”
I try to offer her a smile. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to smile on my behalf. This is bullshit and you get to be sad.”
“I really am,” I admit.
Amelia sighs. “I know.”
We fall quiet again.
“I appreciate you coming, Amelia. I do. I needed this. But I think I want to be alone for a little bit.”
I can tell she isn’t thrilled at the idea of going, but she nods. “I get it.” She pulls me into another hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “You’re amazing.” I nod like I believe her.
“My mom’s going to ask you what happened as you leave,” I say.
“Yeah, so?”
With another shrug, I say, “You can tell her.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’d rather not have to tell her myself.”
Amelia nods sympathetically, then rises to her feet. She opens the door and starts to go, then turns back to me. “Please keep the dress. You really looked beautiful.”
I look over at it hanging smooth and green on the chair. “I’ll think about it.”
Amelia leaves, but the door doesn’t quite latch behind her, so I hear her start to tell my mom about what happened, a story I’m not keen on hearing. I get up to close and lock the door, but not before I hear my mom say, “I tried to tell her…”
I watch TV for a bit. I can’t focus, but the noise is a nice distraction. I fall asleep again. I stare at the wall. I stare at the dress. And at some point, long after Amelia has left, I can swear I smell rice and beans. But I must be imagining things, because we don’t do carbs in this house, not anymore.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
“Yes?” I ask.
Through the door, my mom asks, “Hungry?”
I am.
“A little,” I say.
“Come on,” she says.
I get out of bed and follow her to the kitchen, where the caldero is on the stove. I haven’t seen it out in ages. She pulls off the lid and I see the steam disperse into the air. Inside is a pile of vibrant yellow rice with pigeon peas. My stomach grumbles. She piles two scoops onto a plate and hands it to me, then takes one scoop for herself, and we sit at the table.
“This is delicious, Mom,” I say after my first mouthful. Each bite feels a little like a warm hug.
“Thank you.” She always took pride in being able to cook well, at least before the whole shakes-and-weight-loss thing. When she and my dad met, my mom only knew how to cook Polish and Italian food, a product of her parents’ backgrounds. But my dad showed her how to cook some traditional Puerto Rican dishes—rice and beans (both yellow with pigeon peas and white with kidney beans, of course); empanadillas; pernil; tostones—and those also became the staples in our house, the food I grew up on. Eventually, my (white) mom could cook these meals even better than my (Puerto Rican) dad, and my dad wouldn’t have it any other way. These were my comfort foods. And comfort is what I really need right now.
“Amelia told me what happened,” Mom says.
“Yeah,” I say. “It sucks.”
She sighs. “Yeah. It does. If you need anything…”
I look down at my plate of food. “This was just what I needed.”
At that, my mom smiles. “I’m glad.”
We eat the rest of the meal in peace, and then my mom starts to clean up. It almost feels like old times, which I appreciate. I thank her again and then I go back to my room.
I decide to turn on my phone, and when I do, I see the flood of texts and missed calls from Amelia from the night before. I browse through the messages, then clear the notifications and get to the most recent text from her.
Just checking in. Love you.
I lock my phone without replying, then notice the date on my home screen: February 13.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day—Amelia’s six-month anniversary with Sid and the day she’s planning on telling him she’s in love with him. I haven’t asked her about it much since I’ve been asked to the dance, too preoccupied with my own stuff.
I text her back with Love you, too. I’m good. I’m a jerk and I forgot to check in about your anniversary. What did you decide?
We don’t have to talk about this, she writes.
I want to. Fill me in! What’s the plan? (I’m thankful that I can sound more chipper via text than I can in person.)
Going to take your advice, she writes. I love Sid. I want him to know. I hope he says it back.
He will, I write. Keep me posted!
I’ll text you. We’re meeting up at 6 for dinner. If all goes well, I may not text you until much later :)
I start to reply but can’t really think of anything to say. So I just write, Love you! You got this. xoxo
Then I put my phone on my nightstand and go to bed.
Chapter Thirteen
By Sunday, I’ve felt a lot of things, and I’m nearly all feeling-ed out, except for one emotion that I’ve just added to my list:
Anger.
I’m mad because today is Valentine’s Day and I thought I might have a valentine for the first time ever.
I’m mad at Cal for using me to get close to Amelia. I’m mad at the way he treated me, at the way he discarded me, at the way he may not even fully realize he was unkind to me—or, worse, knew exactly what he was doing and was willing to hurt me to get what he wanted. God, that sucks.
I’m mad at my mom and Sid and Brian, for being right. They knew going to the dance with Cal was too good to be true.
I’m mad at Amelia. Yeah, I’m back to being mad at her. It’s not fair, but whatever, I can’t help it. I’m mad at her for always being everyone’s first choice. Cal’s. My mom’s. The litany of boys we’ve known—boys who started out being both of our friends but eventually gravitated toward her, for all the reasons I’ve been drawn to her: she’s kind and thoughtful and always knows the right thing
to say and is somehow perfect and always has been. How is that even fair? No wonder I’m always coming in second to her. Girl’s a goddess.
But mostly, I guess I’m mad at myself.
I never should’ve agreed to go to the dance with Cal in the first place—even without knowing what was going to go down. I knew Cal liked Amelia. Not to mention that fact that he treated her terribly, constantly pursuing her long after she made it clear she had zero interest.
And if I’m being honest with myself, Cal and I never had any kind of real bond. Like, looking back, I’m embarrassed to even take inventory of our so-called friendship, the one I cherished so close to my heart. Things I took as evidence that he liked me weren’t actually “signs” at all. Cal mostly talked to me whenever he needed my homework or my notes or my money. (I’m ashamed to admit I’ve given him money on more than a few occasions. Of course, he’s never paid me back.) I thought if I treated him well enough, he would eventually realize I was the one he should be with. The classic be-with-the-one-who-was-standing-in-front-of-you-the-whole-time
trope. As a self-proclaimed writer, I should know better! But I hoped—and thinking of that now, I cringe.
Also, looking at the clock, I know it’s dangerously close to the time when Amelia and Sid are celebrating their anniversary. That also means it’s dangerously close to the time when Amelia takes the plunge and leaves me virginal and alone while she gets to ascend to the astral plane that is Totally in Love and Sexually Active.
Okay, that’s not really how I think of it, but is it wrong to feel like having sex is something I might never experience? Not when I’ve made it sixteen long years without so much as a peck on the lips.
Most of my classmates, it seems, have crossed over into that realm—first falling in love (though not always, obvi), and then having sex. It feels like they’re all having sex. I’ll never forget a conversation I overheard between Amelia and some of her friends at the end of eighth grade. Tyler, one of the guys she met on the track team, had asked: “Think you’ll go all the way next year?”
Amelia, cool as a motherfucking cucumber, just shrugged. “Probably not. But maybe the year after.”
Like it was the most casual conversation on the planet! The others chimed in, too. Jessica said she already had (she and her boyfriend had been dating for a whole year at that point), while Maddy shyly shrugged and said maybe. Then John and Khalil high-fived and said yes, and I just sat there, totally dumbfounded at how they could even be thinking about this.
I mean, yeah, fine, I was thinking about it, but I had just started my period and was still navigating that; sex wasn’t even on the radar for me, and now I had to add it to my list of things to worry about.
Maybe I’m a little bitter. I can’t help but feel like…well, like a loser. I know I’m being hard on myself and that I’ve got to be better about that, but I don’t know how, and I’m not going to solve that tonight, so I decide to write instead.
I need to get out of my own head, and writing always helps me do that. For a few minutes or hours, I can get swept up in another life, another place. Today, I decide to write about something happy. It’s a short story about a lovely girl traveling the world and having a really nice moment with a stranger who happens to be wearing the same dress as her. I’m typing so feverishly that I almost don’t hear when my phone buzzes.
But it does, twice, indicating a text. I check it. It’s from Amelia. I’m expecting her to be offering details of her hookup or telling me she feels like a changed woman or something, but instead, it reads:
Sid broke up with me.
I gasp. Then I call Amelia immediately, and she’s sobbing on the other line.
“Let me come get you,” I say, already grabbing my purse and heading outside. “Where are you?”
“Outside his house,” she chokes out.
“I’m on my way, Amelia. Stay put.”
I get to Sid’s way faster than I should, and Amelia hardly gives me time to stop before she’s yanking at the car door handle. “Drive!”
“Where?” I ask.
“Just go!” she yells.
I do. I drive around and let her cry, because it’s all I can think to do.
We end up at my house. I make Amelia text her mom to tell her she’ll be at my place, probably staying the night. I’m not sure what makes me act so logical at that moment because inside, I’m totally freaking out over this, but I need to do something, and telling Amelia to reach out to her mom feels like that. Plus, it offers a brief, if fleeting, distraction that lets me put my game face on. My best friend needs me. Let’s do this.
I bring Amelia into the living room and we sit on the couch.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I say.
She looks at me and her face crumples. I pull her to me, let her cry. I try to say things to make her feel better, but I know she’s hardly hearing me.
“Everything was going perfectly, Charlie. We had a great dinner. We were laughing, flirting. I told him I loved him. He said it back. And we started, but then I—I couldn’t go through with it!” she cries. “I just couldn’t.”
“That’s okay,” I say, rubbing her back.
“It’s not. It’s not! What’s wrong with me?” she asks.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” I say. “It’s totally fine not to want to have sex yet.”
Amelia furiously rubs at the tears wetting her face. “Everyone else has sex, Charlie. And I love him. Yet here I am. Not ‘ready’ and with no good reason.” She lets out a sob. “He just kept saying, ‘But I thought you loved me?’”
“Well, that’s really shitty of him.”
“It’s not; he’s right!” she says. “Who on earth dates a guy for six months in high school and doesn’t sleep with him? I can’t even blame him for dumping me!”
I let her cry for a little without trying to interject.
It’s rare that I see Amelia this way, and I’m always shocked when it happens. I don’t think of her as particularly vulnerable or insecure—but that’s stupid, isn’t it? Because we’re all kind of a wreck inside, at least sometimes.
And imagine my complete shock to find out that my very best friend is struggling with some of the same feelings around sex that I am; that in the same breath that we can say it’s fine and theoretically not a big deal and we want it, we can also be feeling like we’re just not there yet, for whatever reason, and it’s hard not to let that make you feel like a total freak.
I can only imagine the heartbreak of telling someone you love them, hearing they love you, too, but then having them throw that so-called love in your face moments later.
I keep my voice quiet when I speak. “I’m sorry, Amelia. So sorry. If he would try to guilt you into sleeping with him after you told him you loved him, that’s fucked up. You’re incredible and you deserve better.”
“I hate him!” Amelia cries.
I squeeze her hand and say, “I know.”
Softer, she says, “And I love him.”
Another hand squeeze. “I know.”
I wish I could do more than dote on her, but I can’t, so instead I get her a glass of water, the blanket from my room, and some comfortable clothes (my mom’s) to change into. She was doing the same for me just yesterday and yet it feels like eons ago.
“Hungry?” I ask. She nods. I go online and order too much food from our local pizza place. Then I settle next to her on the couch, where she’s rubbing her puffy, red eyes. “Do you want to talk?” I ask. “Or we can not talk. We can watch a movie.”
“I don’t know,” she says, and I know that’s my cue to take the lead. Sometimes when you’re feeling too many things you need someone else to grab the reins. I can do that.
I grab the remote, turn on Netflix, and pick a scary movie. I find it a little hard to concentrate at first (and I’m sure she does, too), but then I get sucked in and nearly jump out of my skin when the doorbell rings and our meal arrives.
I take the food and spread it out on the coffee table
in front of us. Food always makes me feel better; I hope it makes her feel better, too.
“You know what we need?” I ask.
Amelia bites into a mozzarella stick. “What?”
“Booze,” I say.
She lifts her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah! Just a little. I’ll be right back.”
Despite the fact that Amelia and I are woefully underage, we occasionally sneak into my mom’s minibar in the basement and take a few drinks. Nothing serious, and my mom never seems to notice, so now seems like as good a time as any.
I grab four of the Skinny Mini wine coolers and then run upstairs, grinning. I’ll admit that stealing these always feels a little thrilling, even if they’re just from the basement. I hold them up to show Amelia.
“Yes,” she says. “Gimme!”
I throw her a strawberry one and take a raspberry for myself. We twist off the tops, clink them together, and drink. I know that wine coolers are barely alcohol, but Amelia and I always end up with flushed cheeks and feeling a bit more relaxed.
It must work, because soon Amelia seems more willing to talk.
“Boys are the worst,” she says.
“They are! All of them.”
“Like, you do everything for them, and for what?”
I shake my head. “They don’t appreciate anything.”
“No. They don’t.” Amelia frowns. “I’m sad.”
I nod. Then I hear a set of keys in the front door. I instinctively grab the empty wine coolers and shove them underneath the couch just before my mom walks in.
And she looks mad.
“Mom, what are you doing home? I thought you had plans,” I say, hoping I sound cool, even though my heart is racing.
She ignores me. She throws her purse onto the side table, walks into the living room, and motions for me to move over on the couch. Then she flops down and grabs a slice of pizza.
Amelia and I exchange a look.
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega Page 9